Without Rachel
by Deansgirl95
Summary: After going their separate ways after their last hunt & spending the night together finally, her to her home and Dean to hunt yellow eyes with Dad & Sam, Dean finds himself thinking of her often. More so at crucial moments.
1. Chapter 1

Dean drove the car on the highway following his father's truck. The morning was overcast and muggy. Sam sat next to him in the passenger seat reading the news paper.

It had been three days since they'd left Colorado and set on the road toward Salvation Iowa to hunt for the demon. Dad had spelled it out for them why he thought that the demon might be there and it all came down to omens.

Omens that looked like nature was freaking out, but omens none the less. Dad had spent a life time piecing it all together. These omens followed the demon and therefore gave up his location. The location they had pinpointed right now was Salvation, Iowa. And they were heading to now.

For the first time since they'd left Colorado Dean didn't stop his mind drifting to Rachel. Surprisingly the thoughts were not about the fact that he'd made love to her finally the night before they'd left, her perfect body or kissing that sensuous mouth of hers.

No, he was thinking that she'd probably made it home by now. That's where she was heading when she'd left the room they'd shared the next morning after he'd kissed her goodbye.

Then it occurred to him that he didn't know where "home" was to her. He'd never asked in all the months they'd hunted together. Her grandfather had lived and died in Colorado but who knew where she was headed.

He had the thought that he could call her at some point today. Just to see if she was ok. To find out if she had made it home and if her reunion with the mother she hadn't spoken to in a year and a half was a good one.

No. He needed to stop thinking about her. He needed to get her out of his head like he'd done countless other girls. Why she was different he didn't know but he needed to stop thinking this way.

His father veering to the highway shoulder pulled his mind successfully away from her for a moment. Dean pulled in behind him and they all exited the cars. It was only when Dad told them that he'd just gotten a phone call from Caleb telling him Pastor Jim was dead Rachel left Dean's mind altogether.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean stood looking at Meg with his arms crossed over his chest. She was tied to a chair in Bobby Singers den right dab-smack in the middle of the Devil's trap painted on his ceiling. So to be honest they didn't even need the rope, the bitch wasn't going anywhere. At least not until she told them where they were keeping Dad. And then Dean was going to send her back to Hell where the fucking cunt belonged.

"Where's our father, Meg?" Dean demanded.

"You didn't ask very nice." She said with a smug little smile.

"Where's our father, bitch?" Dean corrected.

"Jeez, you kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh wait, I forgot, you don't"

Dean lunged at her; he planted his hands on the arms of her chair and brought his nose to a millimeter of hers. He stared hatefully into her demon eyes.

"You think this is a fucking game?" He yelled. "Where is he? What did you do to him?"

"He died screaming. I killed him myself." She answered.

Dean felt his stomach turn at the visual her words conjured in his mind. He told himself that she was lying. That dad was fine and she was just trying to push his buttons. Well, his buttons were pushed. The constant worry over rather his father was dead or alive came to head right at that moment and he could hold in the rage no longer. He stood up, pulled his arm back, balled his fist and brought it down to land with a satisfying crunch right across the demons cheek bone.

He felt his knuckles crack with the force of the impact and her head whipped to the side. The sight of it gave him a moment of peace in his soul that he hadn't known since the day Dad had disappeared.

It only lasted a second though because when Meg brought her head back up he saw that smug smile spread across her face again.

"That kind of a turn on? You hitting a girl?" She asked

"You're no girl." Dean spat and turned his back on her.

Sam moved in to take his place in the interrogation as Dean leaned against the cabinet rubbing his now sore knuckles.

She was playing with him. Mocking him. The thought brought him back to the night that he'd first met her in a bar when he'd thought she was just a regular girl Sam knew. Rachel had been with him that night and seeing how rude Meg was Rachel had almost torn her face off.

Dean allowed himself to wish Rachel was here now. He told himself that he wished it because he, Sam and Bobby could use the help and that if Rachel could be that angry with her and want to kill her just for mouthing off to him then what would she do now? Knowing that it was actually a demon they were dealing with?

But the truth was that Dean wanted the comfort that he found in her presents. His father was missing, maybe dead, they had no idea where the yellow eyed demon was now and the only one that could lead them to Dad was this hateful bitch.

He wanted someone to tell him that it was all going to be ok. And when he imagined that happening, he also imagined slender arms wrapping around him and burying his face in soft, dark locks of hair.


	3. Chapter 3

Pain.

Pain in his head.

Pain in his body.

God, was the world made of pain now? It must be because it consumed him.

Dean fought off the blanket of darkness to open his eyes just a bit. A whirlwind of activity surrounded him, people shouting things he couldn't understand and running everywhere. In his haze he just barely made out the rotating blades of a helicopter against the bright blue sky to the right of this field on vision.

He must have been lying on his back because he was looking up at it. The sight made him nauseous but he didn't want to close his eyes for fear that the darkness of unconsciousness might overtake him again.

A man, young like him, came into view to look down at him and thankfully blocked the rotating blades.

"He's awake!" The man yelled over the noise of the whooshing blades. To who? Dean didn't know.

He tried to turn his head to see who the man was talking to but realized he couldn't. Something hard around his neck kept his head in place so he couldn't move it. A neck brace?

"No No!" The man said to him. "Try not to move ok? You've been in a car accident and we're taking you to the hospital."

It all flooded back to Dean that instant. Dad possessed by the demon, Sam shooting him in the leg, Sam driving them to the hospital, the semi hitting them on his side. The loud bang and the screech of metal and then the pain exploding in his head. This man must be a paramedic helping the after the wreck.

Dean opened his mouth to ask about Dad and Sam but the wave of dizziness that covered him in that instant was too much to bear.

He saw the edges of his vision begin to fade and had the overwhelming urge to close his eyes again.

He was going out again. He tried to fight it but it was so powerful that there was little he could do and in the end he thought that oblivion was a much better choice than the pain that seemed to have swallowed his whole.

He floated on a dark current, a million tiny stars over his head. He was comfortable and warm and….was he holding some one?

Yes. Yes he was. He looked down and was greeted by a smiling pair of bright green eyes.

He tried hard to focus and more of her face came into view. A wave of comfort washed over him when he saw her smiling up at him. Her head was tilted to the side just a bit so her black hair spilled over his arm that he had draped around her shoulder.

"Am I dreaming?" He asked her.

"I don't know if I would call this dreaming." Rachel said. "Coma's are too deep for dreams."

She sounded concerned. Ever in his mind projection of her she was compassionate and caring.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"Just holding you." She said and smiled.

He smiled back. Her presence was soothing and he found that even though he knew that his life might be in danger, he was content right at this moment because in his delirium he was with her again after so long.

"Will you hold me until I wake up?" He asked.

Her eyes got soft and she looked at him with tenderness. She lifted her hand and ran the backs of her fingers ever so gently down his face. A comforting gesture.

"That's the plan." She said in a voice just above a whisper.

He tightened his grip on her and she settled back into his hold. She felt so real and comforting that he fought to forget that she wasn't really there.

When Dean sat up in his hospital bed he didn't remember his coma dream in which he'd been holding Rachel.

It might have come back to him after a while. But when he got up and began walking the corridors of the hospital for someone to give him some information on where he was and to tell him if his brother and father where even alive, his attention was more focused on his task and took up the space he would have used to remember.

It was the moment that he realized no one could see him, not even Sam or Dad, that any hope of remembering her arms holding him until he woke up, like she promised to, was lost for good.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean stood next to his brother watching the flames lick the night sky from the pyre.

Sam had tears in his eyes but Dean stood there numb, his face emotionless as he watched the figure they'd swathed in white gauze be swallowed up by the fire.

He was watching his father burn. The demon was gone. He himself should be dead and here he was watching his father go up in flames.

"Did he say anything to you?" Sam asked. His voice shaky with pain and sorrow.

Dean didn't answer him right away. What was he going to say? Definitely not the truth. Definitely not the horrible thing Dad had whispered to him in his hospital bed before collapsing in the hall.

"No. Nothing." Dean lied.

The brothers watched the fire again in silence.

Dean thought about what his father had said to him. About Sam. What he might need to do. What he could never do even if it was dad final order to him.

Thinking about it all Dean all of a sudden felt very claustrophobic. The weight of what Dad put on his too much to bear at this moment. Watching his father burn and thinking of those final instructions. Dean felt like he was trying to keep an elephant at arm's length above his head, the pressing weight threatening to crush him.

He wished he could speak to words out loud, wished that he could tell another soul what had happened just before Dad died. Just to have another person hear of his burden would surely make him feel better.

He thought of her again then. He hadn't seen her in so long, hadn't spoken to her since she'd left the room they'd spent the night together in, but right then she was the person that came to his mind when he thought about sharing the burden his father had left him with.

He knew he wouldn't call her. Even in this horrible time and knowing it would make him feel better, he knew that the weight of this was his alone to carry.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean spent the next 2 months in "Singer Salvage" under the hot Dakota sun pulling dents, picking out fragments of shattered windshield from upholstery and rebuilding the Impala's engine.

Finally, FINALLY, after so long she was starting to look like a shadow of her old self again.

Under his loving hand, extended with many tools, the piece of twisted metal the semi had turned her into slowly came back to life.

Dean had no idea if the grease would ever fully wash out under his fingernails again or if the many scars he gotten on his hands during the re-build would ever fully fade but he didn't care.

This car was his salvation in the last weeks. He let himself be consumed by the enormous task of making her mint again and was thankful for the distraction. He didn't think about Dad or having to maybe kill Sam while he polished her fender to her original shine. He didn't think about the fact that they had failed in their mission to kill yellow eyes while he primed the base so he could paint her black again soon or think about his brother going ape-shit while he untwisted the chasse.

Nope. None of that. Just him, tools, the sun and his baby. If only he could get Sam to get the fuck off his back about not dealing all the crap he thought he should be dealing with it would be the perfect situation.

Dean did let his mind wander to Rachel from time to time thought. He wondered if she thought about him, wondered why he thought of her as much as he did.

He contemplated calling her a few times, especially when he was lying in bed at night in Bobby's extra room off the den. He'd even took his phone out and scrolled down to her name once. His finger hovered over the 'send' button for several seconds before flipping it shut.

What would he say to her? _Hey Rach, how's things with mom going? My father's dead you know? I have this crazy feeling that it should have been me but he's dead and we burned him and I'm still here. Oh yeah, and just before he dropped dead he told me I might have to kill my little brother. Well that's the news from my end. Aren't you glad I called? _

He found that the easiest way to deal with her thoughts when they came, either in bed at night or while he worked on the Impala, was to remember the night he'd made love to her.

Dirty thoughts about a beautiful girl where easier to deal with than the ones that came to him naturally about her anyway.


End file.
